Table 4 Auto-ethnography stages

1

Feasibility study

Identification of the actors and preliminary technical hypothesis

A feasibility study on the application if DIY method for food quality assessment

Selection of pool of actors both internally the JRC and in the DIY community

2

Identification of possible areas of application

Review of scientific literature on a selection of applicative cases (detection of nitrites/nitrates through semi quantitative colour-based spectrophotometry, UV and IR Arduino-based spectrophotometry)

3

Hands on testing

Prototyping of different practical possibilities. Fig. 1 shows an. Arduino based kit for the detection of nitrite/nitrate in food samples. A TCS3200 colour sensor in a controlled dark room is employed to read commercially available test strips.^s In a second stage we investigated the reproducibility of these strips through DIY means, although we did not proceed with the actual realization.

4

Collection and analysis of results and actors ‘interactions

Data collection (oral and written communications with actors, online and offline material)